Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

48
to regain control over territories in which
a degree of political autonomy has been
asserted.
One of these strategies is the simple
exercise of violence – whether carried out
by the police, private security, local party
structures or assassins. Violence has been
a constant presence during a decade of
struggle. But there have been two periods
of particularly intense repression that have
both, in different ways, had a profound
impact on the movement.
The first was the expulsion of the
movement’s leading members from the
Kennedy Road settlement in 2009, via the
destruction of their homes by armed men
acting under the direction of local party
structures, and with the support of the
police. This was a process that continued
for some months. The second was two
assassinations, and a police murder, in
the Marikana Land Occupation, in 2013,
followed by another assassination in
KwaNdengezi in 2014.
Both periods of intense repression placed
some people under severe stress resulting
in anxiety and paranoia, as well as familial
pressure, and resulted in real strains
in the movement. In 2014, in an act of
desperation when it seemed that murder
was being carried out with impunity, a
collective decision was taken to make a
tactical vote against the ANC, with a view to
raising the costs of repression for the ruling
party, while remaining independent from
any party political affiliation.
The second primary strategy of
containment, frequently related to the
exercise of violence, is the often very
effective attempt to make independent
development on occupied land very
difficult while mediating access to state
development through local party structures.
For as long as the state has the capacity to
demolish homes, an investment in building
a brick and mortar house is not rational.
Shacks, particularly in acutely contested
land occupations, are often designed to be
cheap, perhaps built from pallets salvaged
from a warehouse. They are sometimes
designed to be able to be collapsed when
the demolition squad comes and rebuilt
when they have departed.
When the state concedes the legitimacy of
a land occupation and offers a housing
development there will be significant
opportunities for accumulation via local
party structures, often enmeshed with
local criminal networks, and access to the
housing will be allocated through party
structures. These two factors combine
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER ELEVEN